GUAYAQUIL

by Eric Arnold

 

 

When we were South Americans
            We were riding the statue of a horse
            Elizabeth was Simon Bolivar
            I was Jose de San Martin
            And I was listening to Def Leppard on my Walkman
            The financial district was absorbing all of this
            Into its dark

When we drove to Minnesota
            Patches of winter rye
            On the sloped banks of the interstate
            Sparse and green
            A comb-over for the dormant brown earth
            Ours was the fastest station wagon
            And strapped to its roof
            Ours was the swiftest
            Rented canoe
            Elizabeth was driving
            And there was just one
            Window down
            To the roar of the wind
            Not the air it carries
            But the
            Wind itself
            Pouring into our ears
            Like the ocean
            From a shell
            Like hot
            Vegetable oil
            Sliding down our ear canals
            Toward our brains

When we became emancipated minors
            We thanked the judge
            And took the 89 bus to East Providence
            And sat in a bookstore
            And read magazines

When they made the Eiffel Tower suicide proof
            We said
            That’s good
            But we really wished they hadn’t

When we divorced our husbands who both happened to be named Frank
            We cut our hair short
            We drove to Minnesota

When we die
            We will be South Americans
            Not in Paris after all
            But on a lake’s
            Silver reflection
            In April
            Withdrawing
            To the sky
            In all directions

 

 

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